2,400 plinthers; 35,000 applications; one person every hour, 24 hours a day for 100 days… Antony Gormley’s One & Other Fourth Plinth living monument will end at 9:00am today when last plinther Emma Burns steps down from the plinth.
Antony Gormley’s One & Other living monument for the Fourth Plinth in Trafalgar Square will end Wednesday 14th October at 9:00am, when Emma Burns, a 30 year old medical photographer from Darlington becomes the last member of the public to leave the plinth.
Commissioned by the Mayor of London and produced by Artichoke in partnership with Sky Arts, and supported by Arts Council England, One & Other has seen a different person take their place on the Fourth Plinth every hour, 24 hours a day for 100 days. By 9:00am on Wednesday 14th October, 2,400 people of all ages, backgrounds and cultures and from all over the UK will have participated in this unique piece of art. Ranging in age from 16 to 84, they have travelled from as far afield as Kirkwall on the Orkney Islands to Derry, N. Ireland to be part of this collective portrait of the UK of 2009.
There has been huge engagement with the project around the globe through the One & Other project website, developed for Sky Arts, which streamed the full 100 days in its entirety. www.oneandother.co.uk has to date received over half a million unique users, who have made over 16,000 comments on plinthers’ profiles since the project began, with over 7.5 million page impressions, and over 35,000 applications. The weekly highlights programme also saw luminaries from the arts and beyond debating and reflecting on the project, including Grayson Perry, Joan Bakewell, Ken Livingstone and Bettany Hughes.
One & Other has welcomed participants as diverse as astronomers and anthropologists, barmaids and burlesque dancers, poets and plasterers, with activities including cycling, dancing, story-telling, campaigning and fundraising, cooking, preaching, stripping, puppetry and just meditating.
1210 men and 1190 women of all ages:
• 131 teenagers went on the plinth
• 10 were 16 years old
• 39 was the most popular age
• the highest number of plinthers were in their 20s (603)
• 590 plinthers were in their 30s
• 551 plinthers were in their 40s
• 364 plinthers were in their 50s
• 142 plinthers were in their 60s
• 15 plinthers were in their 70s
• 3 octogenarians took part – the oldest was 84
People from all walks of life:
• doctors and nurses
• company directors
• taxi drivers
• plumbers and mechanics
• housewives and house-husbands
• teachers and students
• artists and actors
• activists
• policemen
• lorry drivers
• civil servants and administrators
• film and theatre directors
• pensioners
One & Other project website, developed by Sky Arts saw:
• More than 7,500,000 page impressions
• 691,000 unique users
• 160,270 tweets about One & Other
• More than 4,000 friends on Facebook
• 4,000 pictures on Flickr
• More than 10,000 pledges to watch
• 33,000 comments posted
• 34,500 applications
• An average of 10 mins on site
Antony Gormley said: “Art should be for everyone, this was an experiment to see whether everyone could be involved in making it. Who can be represented in art? How can we make it? How can we experience it? These are questions that have exercised me for years. I am inspired and given hope by what we have done this last three months. Whatever goes on the plinth hereafter the square will never be the same; the memory of this summer’s living sculpture in all its diversity is indelible.”
Although the project has ended, a complete record of it will remain. Each participant was photographed before taking to the plinth and interviewed as part of an extensive oral history project. It is planned that a full record of the event will be accessible for posterity via the Wellcome Library. The project website will be lodged in and made accessible by the British Library, which has selected it as a way of preserving the project for the democratisation of art it represents.
In addition, Jonathan Cape / Random House will publish the fully illustrated book of One & Other, including images of each participant, interviews, and analysis by an anthropologist, a sociologist, a psychoanalyst and an art historian.
Publisher Mark Holborn commented: “We are thrilled to be engaged in the enterprise because we will be making a book that will be looked at by future generations. The photographic evidence and the oral testaments constitute an extraordinary view of British life at the end of this troubled first decade of a new millennium. In generations to come people will be able to look back at this exposure of British society in the very centre of the nation but outside the high temple of art. At over 700 pages long, the book will be no less monumental in scale than the project itself.”
From the entertaining to the campaigning, and creative to the contemplative, the 2,400 individuals who have taken part in One & Other have each left their own mark on a unique artistic experiment:
The Activists:
People chose to use their hour for an extraordinary variety of causes in ever more inventive ways, raising a huge amount for charity in the process, from animal welfare, to the environment, to human rights, and all with a personal story to explain their involvement. Rachel Wardell (Rachel W), the first person on the plinth, raised awareness for the NSPCC; Abby Jackson (Minibeastgirl) dressed as a butterfly to raise awareness for the WWF; Brian Capaloff (Brian_C) read a statement on behalf of a woman on death row in Texas; while Liz Crow (Liz_C) sat motionless in her wheelchair dressed as a nazi to convey a message about attitudes to disability today.
The Creatives:
From painters, sculptors, and photographers, to costume makers, singers and dancers, creatives of all persuasions brought their art to the plinth. Amanda Hall (Amanda) created a statue out of bread inspired by Gormley’s Event Horizon; Sharon Kirk (Sharon K), excited many with her masked keyboard playing; Verity Standen (Verity) charmed onlookers with her beautiful song; Scott Cupit (Scottie800) gave an impromptu swing dance class; Amy Weinberger (Amy_W) posed as a statue, slowly stripping of throughout hour, to reveal a body painted as the inside of a human body.
The Promoters:
Others used the plinth to promote themselves, their companies, professions and other businesses. Alex Kearns (Alex_Kearns), a 23 year old man from Kingston-Upon-Thames successfully landed a job with a top City firm after hanging his CV from the plinth. Mike Pitts (Mike_P_1) took Archaeology to the plinth, laying out a series of stones which together summed up the entire history of humanity in the British Isles. Scott Illman (scottdistillers) dressed as a town-crier to promote his chain of London pubs.
The Communicators:
People came armed with mobile phones, laptop computers, megaphones, blackboards, pens and paper, to spread their messages and simply communicate with observers on the ground, friends, family and anyone who chose to text and tweet them. Jonathan Harkins (Jonathan) declared himself a human telegraph inviting people to send him their messages of love which he then read out on the plinth – one was a proposal of marriage; Gwynneth Pedler (Tenacious), the oldest plinther at 84, signalled with semaphore flags from her wheelchair whilst on the plinth.
The Contemplators:
Others used their hour in more introspective ways, practicing yoga, reading, or simply stood or sat contemplating the square . Liz Gray (Sarada) from Leicester, Helen Gillard (Helen_K) was one of many who practiced yoga on the plinth. Of those who chose to “do nothing” Lewis Orchard (Lewisorchard) proved the most popular on Twitter.
A full list of plinthers profiles, along with their hours on the plinth can be found at www.oneandother.co.uk.
Boris Johnson, the Mayor of London, said: “Over the past 100 days we have witnessed the bold, the beautiful, the thought provoking and the bizarre. In the age of X Factor and Guitar Hero, Gormley’s plinthers have quite literally stood alone. But in taking to this unique stage they have also become part of a living patchwork of humanity. Whatever your views, One & Other continues the Fourth Plinth tradition to inspire, provoke and irritate in equal measure.”
Ekow Eshun, Chair of the Fourth Plinth Commissioning Group, said: “With One & Other Antony Gormley attempted to create a portrait of Britain and as the project comes to its close it’s clear he’s done exactly that. When I say that, I think not only of the volunteers on the plinth, but the millions of people who clocked onto the website to see what they were doing and the thousands more who walked through Trafalgar Square every day and found themselves engaging with whoever was on the plinth at the time. In that respect, the project was about all of us. It’s been debated and celebrated across the country and hour by hour over 100 days, we’ve been able to see our individual and collective hopes, concerns and desires stand on display. It’s a fantastic achievement.”
John Cassy, director of Sky Arts, said: “We knew as soon as we became involved in One & Other that it was going to be an extraordinary hundred days, but I don’t think any of us could have predicted the scale and speed with which it would become so intrinsic to the cultural landscape of Trafalgar Square and beyond. We’re thrilled to have played a part in giving this project a voice and life outside of London, and look forward to working with Artichoke in future to continue bringing the arts to the people across the UK.”
Artichoke, an Arts Council regularly funded organisation, best known for bringing The Sultan’s Elephant to London in 2006 and La Machine to Liverpool last year – produced the event as part of the 2009 Sky Arts Artichoke Season, which underlines Sky’s ongoing commitment to the airs, on screen, online and on the streets.
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